Amazon has just announced that their Amazon Echo smart speakers will be launched in Australia on 1 February. You can pre-order now - the Echo Dot is AUD $49, significantly under-cutting the Google Home Mini's AUD $79 price. (As a reminder: podcasts on these devices are powered by TuneIn).

Futuri Media, a broadcasting technology company based in Cleveland OH, USA has signed US broadcaster Alpha Media for, among other things, their POST product "which instantly turns broadcasts into PPM-encoded on-demand audio". Alpha Media has 228 stations across the US.

TEST

A podcast for managers, Manage Smarter, has launched. It's branded content from SalesFuel, who offer tools for salespeople. "Good managers improve numbers. But great managers improve people, their most important asset. This podcast is a way to expand the skills and thinking of leaders who are interested in truly learning new ways to manage that move the needle toward more positive results."

YouTube makes significant changes to their monetisation platform: they now require creators to have, at a mimimum, 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past twelve months: otherwise they will no longer share revenue. In a discussion on Reddit, one Redditor makes the point that this probably ensures quality content for advertisers. (Of interest: 4,000 hours of watchtime will reward creators who make longer videos).

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I'm in Vancouver BC, Canada on 30 and 31 January. Want to meet up? Get in touch.

Disclosures - the author was on Futuri Media's advisory board in 2015, and let Kinderling Kids Radio buy me a coffee last year.